Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine (18 page)

“Kane!” It was a demand, spat out with the urgency of a woman unraveling faster than she knew how to handle it.

With the pad of his forefinger, he pressed upward to the crest of her womanhood. He watched her bite down hard on her tongue, and then he slid his fingers partially out again, leaving her balanced precariously at the rocky peak. His hand cupped her sex, holding her, savoring the moment of possession.

She cried out, gasping, gripping his shoulders, digging her nails in. Slowly he slid his fingers into her again, working her intently, the broad pad of his thumb gently rubbing her heated crest, taking her over that edge until she collapsed against his chest, her knot of hair—like the rest of her—completely fallen.

Thus ended Miss Valentine's first lesson at his capable, ungentlemanly hands.

She had enough linen in one chemise to cut out the pattern for a man's shirt, as long as she was careful and didn't waste any. Sophie was not much of a seamstress, her stitches big and clumsy, usually requiring they be picked out and resewn by her aunt, but she was determined to do this herself and not seek any assistance.

“He can't go about in that silk shirt every day,” she exclaimed. “This will be much cooler for the summer heat.”

Aunt Finn smiled at the soft mutterings from the other side of the great hearth. “You're making a shirt for Mr. Kane?”

“Yes. He needs one.”

There was a short silence, and then her aunt said, “There is an extra curl in your pretty hair these days, Sophie. And I like to see it loose more often. It makes you look much less careworn.”

Sophie felt a broad smile pulling at her face, but she daren't let it out to play. She knew what caused that curl.

Her aunt sighed heavily. “I hear James Hartley has proposed marriage again.”

Well, that wiped away the temptation to smile.

Her family had mixed views about James. Maria—ever the romantic—had high hopes for her sister to be in love, and Henry, transparently eyeing the financial advantage of such a match, reminded her she should think of the family. It was, as he told her, the least she could do after all the trouble she had caused. Henry didn't like James, but he could ignore many things if coin was at hand, as indeed they had daily proof in the shape of Lavinia, and his circumstances were more dire and desperate now than they were when she was nineteen. If the “problem of Sophie,” as his mother-in-law called it, could finally be solved without forcing her into a governess post, he would be glad of it. He certainly wouldn't discourage Sophie's wealthy suitor from coming to the fortress almost every day and escorting her about in his curricle.

But when together, she and James talked mostly of their memories, for the past was all they had—the present being such a changeable, odd thing, and the future too far away. Sophie didn't remember everything quite the way James did. His memories were well embellished with gilt paint, but little truths occasionally shone through, peeking out between the extravagant, curling fronds of his enlarged stories.

She was still studying her stitches and sighed pensively. “James lives in the past. Our golden youth.”

“But your woman's heart is elsewhere now.”

Sophie folded the half-finished shirt and stuffed it away in her sewing box. “Wherever my heart is, it hardly matters. A woman of almost thirty must be practical.”

With a half hour still to wait before James arrived, she looked for her book.
Fordyce's Sermons for Young Ladies
was on the mantel where she previously left it, knowing it was never in any danger of being picked up, much less opened, by Lavinia. But the little book she kept hidden within it was gone.

“Aunt Finn, have you seen my book?” She searched the shelves nearby, but the slim volume was nowhere to be found.

“I saw it earlier,” the old lady offered genially.

“Where?”

Finn beamed. “In the fire.”

“In the fire?”

“It fell in.”

“
Fell
in?
”

“From my hand.”

Sophie ran for the poker and prodded among the ashes in the great hearth, but she was too late. All she could retrieve was a tattered corner of the leather-bound cover. “What on earth possessed you?” she cried.

“It was chilly in here, and we were running out of coal.” The elderly lady lifted her shoulders in a pert shrug, not unlike those Sophie was prone to giving when caught in some misdemeanor. “You spent far too much time with your nose in that book. It was not healthy.”

Still gripping the poker in one hand, Sophie stared down at the smoldering ruins. Well, that was that, then. No more theory.

“I wish you two young people would get a little wind in your sails,” Aunt Finn exclaimed suddenly, and Sophie knew the lady wasn't talking about her and James. “I want my old chamber back at Souls Dryft—overlooking the orchard in the back of the house, facing south. I spent many a delightful afternoon in that orchard when I was young and terribly in love with the admiral. He used to come through the hole in the orchard wall, the one your father never got around to mending, and I'd wait under the plum trees. Of course, he wasn't an admiral then, just a merry, blonde-haired captain. The most stunning specimen of manhood.” She fell back in her rocking chair with another sigh, a sweet, soft breath of yearning for a long-passed summer. Finn was a small, delicate creature with wide grey eyes and white hair that was once pure gold. There was a look of angelic innocence about her, which made those tales of erotic adventure even more shocking. “This family, naturally, was appalled”—her lips turned up in a mischievous smile—“because he was a man with a rakish reputation.”

“Then he left you and broke your heart.” Just as Lazarus would leave, she thought, so it would be just as well never to fall in love with him. It was only lust, of course, what they had.

“But my heart still beats,” Finn replied, “so he can't have done it much harm after all. Now I take comfort in some very blissful memories of our stolen hours together, and I regret nothing, nor do I begrudge him a single kiss.” Her steady gaze rested on her niece's face. “If not for him, I might have grown old with nothing to remember. I might have been married to someone like Fitzherbert Derwinter, a good enough fellow but rather dull. Like your Mr. Hartley. Oh yes, I had my share of offers.” She chuckled, her pale ringlets shaking jauntily under her lace cap. “But I never met a man to compare to my captain. Had I never known that pleasure, I might have been willing to settle. I might have been trapped in an unhappy marriage like many we see around us. So, no, I have no regret, and I'm more grateful to my captain than he knows.” She leaned forward again and placed a small hand on Sophie's knee. “He left me with a very precious gift, and I would not, for all the world, have forgone that delight.”

Sophie smiled. “Then I'm glad you had such a love, Aunt Finn, and he left you with wonderful memories.” But the captain also left her aunt alone, a ruined woman, she thought acidly. He took his pleasure and left. It was frustrating that her aunt forgave him so easily. Finnola Valentine generally saw through men as if they were glass. For some reason, however, the lady held no bitterness in her heart for the captain, as if, whatever he gave her, far outweighed any suffering she knew as a consequence of his brief love.

“I hope, my dear Sophie, you won't let your own chance for happiness slip away. Our Mr. Kane tells me he might not remain long in Sydney Dovedale. If he found a wife, he might stay, of course.”

Curiously enough, her teeth ached at the thought of Lazarus ever leaving the village, but he'd told her his current agreement with the admiral was only until the end of harvest. Perhaps he grew bored already in Sydney Dovedale and would soon take flight again.

Their conversation ended shortly after, when James Hartley arrived, as promised, to take Sophie out in his curricle again.

***

Kane had seen those yellow wheels go racing by his gate again, churning up mud and scattering wildlife. He waited until the curricle disappeared under the gatehouse at the top of the hill; then he grabbed his shovel and ran out, while Chivers kept vigil from the wall.

***

It was a cool, overcast day following a night of rain. The trees shimmered, their branches bent under the weight of raindrops hanging from the leaves like crystals from chandeliers. The long grass at the verge was sodden, the lane soft, churned over by hooves. James drove at his usual speed, and Sophie wondered vaguely if he gave any thought to her comfort on that small, slippery seat at his side. She felt her life hung in the balance in that wretched curricle as they careened along the wet lane. At nineteen, she would have shrieked for joy and urged him ever faster; at twenty-nine, she had the foolish desire to get where they were going in one piece. Apparently, she mused, Ellie Vyne was quite right when she suggested men did not mature at the same pace as women.

As they whipped along, traversing wet, unsteady ground, the curricle squeaking and shuddering, the horses clopping along at full speed, Sophie tried dissuading him from planning an evening's entertainment at his grandmother's house. The more she thought of it, the more certain she was of imminent disaster. Lavinia and her mother would be in their element in the presence of such wealth and “superiority,” and their delusions of grandeur would, doubtless, be ten times more painful to endure. Then there were the benevolent Sadlers, so worshipped by Mrs. Dykes, with their team of marriageable daughters and their devout eagerness to save the world from stray fallen wenches. James had insisted on inviting them along, just to amuse himself and his grandmother. And to tease Sophie about that governess post—out of the way—Mrs. Dykes was so keen to arrange for her. He seemed to think her only option, if she wanted to escape Mrs. Dykes's plan, was to marry him. Naturally, he liked to see himself as a knight in shining armor, and she wouldn't want to spoil his illusions.

Just as they approached the gates of Souls Dryft, there was a bump, a lurch, and then an abrupt, rocking halt. The horses whinnied and shook their heads against the bit, as if to say they were done with this idiocy, and James eventually admitted they were stuck. The left wheel was sunk in a deep rut. For a moment they were suspended, the small equipage tilting at a treacherous angle, and then there was an ominous crack. James fell sideways, slithering along the leather seat. He clung on for several seconds, until, with another deafening crack, the wheel finally broke under the strain, and he found himself sitting in the muddy lane.

While he cursed and threw his whip, Sophie tried desperately not to laugh. But to see the ever-elegant, always-spotless gentleman in such a state was almost too much for good manners and new maturity to bear. To make his humiliation much worse, the gates opened and Lazarus came out, along with his large friend, their faces just a little too concerned and amazed.

Chivers tried to help James out of the mud, while Lazarus came to her side of the cart, arms raised. She was quite a bit higher than she should be, due to the angle of the stricken vessel, and leaping down herself would probably twist an ankle. It would most definitely leave her with muddy shoes and hem. Although she chided herself for thinking of a little twisted ankle and a spattering of mud when poor James was in a far worse state, she thought it would be petty to refuse the arms she was offered.

The young rogue's hands were tight around her waist, fingers spread, and when he lifted her down, he took his time about it, letting her body slide slowly down his, inch by lingering inch.

“Your friend should drive his horses with greater caution,” he muttered.

He held her a few inches from the earth, making some excuse about not wanting her to walk in the mud, and kept her against his body so she felt every breath he took, every movement of his muscle. She marveled once again at his strength, for he didn't even break a sweat as he carried her toward the grass verge by the gate. Slowly.

Her private tutor, she thought with a little shiver of wicked delight. Her secret.

On the other side of the broken curricle, James was still scrambling to his feet, slipping about in the mud, loudly cursing and refusing the help Chivers offered. Chivers gave up on the surly gentleman and turned his attention to the horses, petting them with a kindly, soothing hand. Kane finally lowered Sophie the last few inches and suggested his friend could mend the wheel if they waited a while.

“It looks like more rain,” he added, gazing up into the grey, mottled sky. “We'll stable the horses here to keep them dry, and you can take shelter inside.”

James sulked, sticking out his lower lip and pulling on his silk cravat with muddied gloved fingers. “We should go back up the hill,” he muttered as the rain fell like arrows around them.

Sophie looked askance. Her feet wouldn't be warm and dry again for hours, and her hair would frizz. Not that she was vain about her hair, but, good Lord, a woman had to have something in her favor, something that didn't make her cringe when she looked in the mirror.

“I could ride Speedwell, and you could take Foxglove, if the people here could lend us saddles,” James snapped.

Lazarus replied swiftly, “My horses work on the farm and are not for pleasure jaunts. I don't keep spare saddles.”

“Oh, for pity's sake, let's go in!” Sophie turned and marched through the gate before James could stop her. In fact, she was curious to see the lady's horse which, according to rumor, Lazarus Kane had recently purchased despite his claim of owning only farm horses. She strode across the wet yard and glanced casually toward the loose boxes, but no horse looked out. The familiar warm smell of horse and hay, however, filled her up with pleasant memories of youth, and she was tempted to run in and see for herself. Alas, she presently had two other fractious beasts to worry about.

They eyed each other at the gate, predatory and square shouldered.

Lazarus waved his hand toward the house. “After you.
Sir
.”